‘Jesus Christ, I didn’t even know the bloke! I get the nod from the officers I got a visitor. They don’t say who it is. I think, maybe he’s a solicitor and, like I done today, I reckon anything to get out from the wing, right?’
‘That is all very well, Courtney, but Eamon Krasiniqe died, and you are going to be charged with his murder.’
‘The fuck I am!’
‘I’m afraid you are fucked.’
Courtney sat shaking his head. He flexed his arm muscles so much, they looked like ebony; then he cracked his knuckles. They were obviously getting to him: the sweat was now standing out on his forehead.
‘I think you were offered money, or something else worth your while, to give the dose to Krasiniqe. Now, they are about to arrest a guy called Camorra — you ever heard of him?’
Courtney stared.
Harry continued, lying through his teeth: they had no idea where Camorra was, let alone were on the verge of arresting him. ‘He’s a drug trafficker, also brings in illegal immigrants. He’s got a lot of money and a lot of contacts. He wanted Murphy dead, because Murphy was going to inform on him.’
Courtney swallowed and shook his head. ‘I don’t know about this, man; I dunno about this.’
‘Do you know this man Camorra? Clinton Camorra.’
Courtney suddenly put his hands over his face. ‘Oh shit, shit!’
‘You got relatives back in Uganda?’
Courtney pinched the bridge of his nose; his eyes were brimming with tears. He nodded.
‘I hope to Christ they aren’t kids,’ Harry said, ‘because you know what Camorra does to kids. Did you read about that little boy’s body? Decapitated, found in a black bin-liner in Regent’s Canal? He supplies boys like that to sickos. So, I certainly hope, Courtney, you have not got kids being brought in by this piece of filth. Now, can you give us anything?’
Courtney slammed his hand flat onto the table.
‘Yes. Yes, I got something!’
Langton listened to Anna’s call, almost with disbelief.
‘Sweetheart, you can have a fleet of squad cars if that’s what the lad wants.’ He listened, and then rubbed his face. ‘Whatever you need. Take it slow; this is the first lucky break we’ve had.’
Langton returned to the incident room in a really up-tempo mood, just as Brandon and Harry walked in. Harry wafted a piece of paper in the air.
‘What you get?’ Langton asked eagerly.
Harry and Brandon, like two grinning kids, passed over the statement.
Courtney had been telling the truth when he said he did not know his prison visitor. What he had never divulged, however, was that the visitor had come with a deal. He said that he worked for someone with very high connections: someone who could bring his wife and two children to England — at a price.
Harry held up two fingers. ‘He had to give two coconut rock cakes to Eamon Krasiniqe.’
‘What? Fucking rock cakes?’
‘Coconut rock cakes,’ Brandon interjected.
‘He was told they would make Krasiniqe dopey. Courtney was to say they had come from his brother. He was then to help Krasiniqe with Arthur Murphy, make it look like a prison fight. As it turned out, the poor kid had already been fed so much of the Jimson whatever, he went crazy and cut Murphy’s throat in the exercise yard!’
Langton looked at the grinning pair and shrugged. ‘Terrific — but what does this give us, apart from the rock cakes? We knew the bastard must have had something to do with it; this just confirms it.’
Brandon held up his hand again. ‘We have more. You see, Courtney is still waiting to hear about his kids — like, when do they arrive. We gave him the lowdown on Camorra, and said he should pray that they don’t get brought into the UK.’
‘Laid it on with a trowel, we did,’ Harry said. ‘We were gonna make an arrest of Camorra, all that — then he gave this up. It’s a mobile phone number. He said he’d called twice and spoken to the contact who said the deal was going down — which is why he agreed to help Krasiniqe kill Murphy, and why he’s refused to talk before. For the sake of his wife and kids.’
‘Jesus Christ, is it still active?’
‘Gotta be, because Courtney was still keeping quiet about the rock cakes. We told him not to make another call to it until we got hold of the guy.’
‘Did he give a description?’
‘Yeah. A well-dressed black guy, over six feet, real smart. Wore a grey suit, white shirt; said he started off thinking he might be a solicitor, ’cos he looked like one.’
Langton clapped his hands; at long last, it looked as if the case was turning around.
The mobile phone was still active, but they could not trace who it belonged to, as it was a pay-as-you-go account. They got in touch with the auxiliary team at Scotland Yard, who had to get a trace on the phone; they would try to keep the owner on line to get the location where it was being used.
Anna felt drained; she had been with Keith for an hour and a half. Painstakingly slowly, she had gained details from him. She did not bring up his mother or Sickert, just ‘bad men’ that he could arrest and whom they could only go and get if he could recall where they were. She had tried testing out locations from Sickert’s bus tickets — Tooting and Clapham — but these had brought no reaction. She did not say Peckham, since she was afraid that would traumatize him. Instead, she asked simple questions about the size of the house, the cars and garden. Keith said there was a big dog on a chain, but he didn’t know what kind; they had talked about dogs for a while, until she could draw him back to more detailed descriptions of the house. It did not match the Peckham property. This meant Keith had been taken somewhere else.
Regent’s Park, Hampstead, Croydon, Maida Vale, Kilburn and Chalk Farm all got no response, so she started to move on to locations further out of London. A clue came when he asked if he could go to the theme park in the patrol car. He described a water ride and a shooting range where you fired a gun and water spurted in your face.
Anna asked if he had been taken to the house on a train or bus.
‘Motorway,’ he said. He was starting to get frustrated and asked when he would get his handcuffs.
It was the young care worker who approached Anna; she had been listening. ‘Chessington? They have a theme park.’
‘And a zoo,’ Keith said. He began to talk about feeding the penguins. He described the monkeys and the chimps, and the two tigers.
Langton listened. Anna was certain that the second Camorra property was near Chessington. Langton asked if she had ever said the name Camorra to the boy: she said she hadn’t. She was worried that anything that touched on the abuse he had been subjected to might stop him from talking freely.
Langton filled her in, in turn, on how they were about to put a trace on a mobile phone that might be connected to Camorra. They were using an officer with about as strong an accent as Courtney’s, and were standing by for him to make the call as if he was Courtney talking from Parkhurst prison pay phone.
Anna felt very emotionaclass="underline" the little boy’s face lit up when he was taken to the patrol car. The uniformed officer took off his cap and saluted him.
‘Afternoon, sir.’
Keith sat in the front seat, as he was a detective. Anna and Alison sat in the back. He was allowed to hold the police radio and they made constant calls to him, addressing him as Detective Keith. Anna watched in the rearview mirror as the unmarked patrol car moved into position behind them.
The phone seemed to ring for a long time before it clicked on.
‘Yes?’
The officer went for it, playing his role as Courtney Ransford to perfection, his voice low and harsh.